Designed for the Business, Non-Business, Economics, Non-Economics Major(s) to Explore and Understand a Variety of Real-World Issues.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Structural Unemployment
Unemployment as a result of opening up international trade, or technological advances are called structural unemployment (as you all know). This is a healthy type of unemployment. This link are some interesting types over the years.
Some of the jobs such as the elevator worker seem completely useless now. Because technology has increased drastically since those time jobs like the ones described in the attached link are easily replaced by technology. Technology seems to decrease the need of unskilled labor in the workforce and therefore making education much more important now rather then a decade ago.
As time goes on it seems as if the need for some labor in the workforce is not needed due to technology. The supermarkets have already started to get rid of cashiers and replacing them with due it your self machines. Soon i believe the same route will be taken with the mail man. Every piece of mail that we recieve will be electronic instead of paper, which i actually think is a good idea due to less paper being used.
I think both Kevin and Maria are right about the technology decreasing the number of jobs in certain areas but I have to question the fact that we're losing human interaction in the process. To some extent, economically, it makes sense to get rid of these jobs but if we move to a world that is completely dependent upon machines or computers to ring up our groceries or deliver our mail, how are we going to interact with others? And where will we interact with them? Maybe it's just me but isn't it nice to go into a store sometimes and be greeted by a person who genuinely wants to be there?
I agree with Christie. Having some human interaction is important when it comes to things such as production. We cannot rely heavily on robots and machines to complete tasks 100%. Ironically, most of the time, humans are the ones that fix factory machines when they break down. One of the more recent advancements in structural employment are self-scan lanes in grocery stores. While there are still many lanes in grocery stores in which an employee rings up purchases, it is not too far into the future that we may see a decrease in the number of employees that ring up customers.
This was a really cute article. I love looking at how things use to be as compared to now. It is crazy to think that there use to be jumps such as a lamp lighter. Everyone gets so wrapped up in todays modern society that we forget about the past and how far technology has really come. Sometimes I think it is sad how much we rely on technology to do practically everything for us. For example, right now this blog is such a modern way of doing homework. In 1935 they didn't even have the electricity to light street lamps it had to be done by hand with fire and now I am submitting my homework via internet! I don't think necessarily think having so much technology takes away from jobs because like Abigail said humans are the ones to fix them and make sure they are operating smoothly.
Structural Employment is an interesting yet very scary concept, especially in modern times of rapidly evolving and progressive technologies. over the last couple of decades we have seen factory workers lose their jobs to highly skilled machines. We see computers take control over a large sector of our economy. It leads one to wonder, will structural employment become unhealthy in the future. With machines constantly evolving is it possible to see a large decrease in jobs for human because of alternative machine use. It seems very far off but when analyzing the progress computers have made over the last couple of years it doesn't sound like a long shot. There may always be jobs for humans in management positions but will machines eventually ween out the low skill labor jobs?
Some of the jobs such as the elevator worker seem completely useless now. Because technology has increased drastically since those time jobs like the ones described in the attached link are easily replaced by technology. Technology seems to decrease the need of unskilled labor in the workforce and therefore making education much more important now rather then a decade ago.
ReplyDeleteAs time goes on it seems as if the need for some labor in the workforce is not needed due to technology. The supermarkets have already started to get rid of cashiers and replacing them with due it your self machines. Soon i believe the same route will be taken with the mail man. Every piece of mail that we recieve will be electronic instead of paper, which i actually think is a good idea due to less paper being used.
ReplyDeleteI think both Kevin and Maria are right about the technology decreasing the number of jobs in certain areas but I have to question the fact that we're losing human interaction in the process. To some extent, economically, it makes sense to get rid of these jobs but if we move to a world that is completely dependent upon machines or computers to ring up our groceries or deliver our mail, how are we going to interact with others? And where will we interact with them? Maybe it's just me but isn't it nice to go into a store sometimes and be greeted by a person who genuinely wants to be there?
ReplyDeleteAbigail Cohn said...
ReplyDeleteI agree with Christie. Having some human interaction is important when it comes to things such as production. We cannot rely heavily on robots and machines to complete tasks 100%. Ironically, most of the time, humans are the ones that fix factory machines when they break down.
One of the more recent advancements in structural employment are self-scan lanes in grocery stores. While there are still many lanes in grocery stores in which an employee rings up purchases, it is not too far into the future that we may see a decrease in the number of employees that ring up customers.
This was a really cute article. I love looking at how things use to be as compared to now. It is crazy to think that there use to be jumps such as a lamp lighter. Everyone gets so wrapped up in todays modern society that we forget about the past and how far technology has really come. Sometimes I think it is sad how much we rely on technology to do practically everything for us. For example, right now this blog is such a modern way of doing homework. In 1935 they didn't even have the electricity to light street lamps it had to be done by hand with fire and now I am submitting my homework via internet! I don't think necessarily think having so much technology takes away from jobs because like Abigail said humans are the ones to fix them and make sure they are operating smoothly.
ReplyDeleteStructural Employment is an interesting yet very scary concept, especially in modern times of rapidly evolving and progressive technologies. over the last couple of decades we have seen factory workers lose their jobs to highly skilled machines. We see computers take control over a large sector of our economy. It leads one to wonder, will structural employment become unhealthy in the future. With machines constantly evolving is it possible to see a large decrease in jobs for human because of alternative machine use. It seems very far off but when analyzing the progress computers have made over the last couple of years it doesn't sound like a long shot. There may always be jobs for humans in management positions but will machines eventually ween out the low skill labor jobs?
ReplyDelete